Tuesday, November 05, 2013

Review: 'Blue Is the Warmest Color': How Much Sex Is Too Much Sex? - "Kechiche is not the only French director to be accused of criminal badgering. Jean-Claude Brisseau received a one-year suspended prison sentence and fines of nearly 25,000 euros for sexually harassing two actresses while preparing his 2002 film Choses secrètes (Secret Things). His response was to make another movie, Les anges exterminateurs (Exterminating Angels), portraying himself as the victim of his victims... Instead of wondering why there is so much whoopee in Blue Is the Warmest Color — and it’s actually not that much: about nine minutes in the nearly three-hour film — one might ask why there is so little in most other movies. Considering that sex is an activity almost everyone participates in and thinks about even more, it’s startling and depressing to think about how few movies connect their characters’ lives with their erotic drives. The practical answer to this question it that people no longer pay to see sex in movie theaters, as they did in the ’70s for art-house dramas (Last Tango in Paris) and porno chic (Deep Throat); they get it on their home computers for free. But directors can still find much to explore, and Kechiche is one of them. Unlike the slick, deodorized sexcapades in late-night Cinemax movies, the graphic scenes in Blue express the personalities of Emma, who’s in charge, and Adèle, who’s truly, madly, deeply in love. Amour fou was rarely so fou, so fevered, so lovable."

Pot growers celebrate as Uruguay legalizes cultivation and consumption of marijuana - "What the government of President José “Pepe” Mujica is advocating — which will surely become law because of his movement’s comfortable majority in the Senate — will make this country of just 3.4 million people a trailblazer. Under Mujica, a 78-year-old former guerrilla, Uruguay has adopted a raft of liberal policies on issues from same-sex marriage to abortion."

Changing British attitudes: press and politicians out, royal family in - "The UK is still a long way off its 1980s levels of royal support, when 65% said it was "very important" for Britain to continue to have a monarchy. But there has been a fascinating turn-around in opinion – from 27% thinking this in 2006 to 45% expressing strong support for the royal family in this year's latest survey."

Why I Don’t Swear: An Argument for Decent Language - "Aristotle made a distinction between voice and language. A voice is merely sound indicating pleasure or pain, but language has political and ethical dimensions. Language is a means by which human beings make distinctions between good and evil, just and unjust. “Language”, as my professor Dr. Robert E. Wood likes to say, “is reason laying down its tracks in a system of signs.” Reason cannot fully articulate itself in the sound of a voice. It needs the more refined mode of signs, in the form of letters that form words which can be strung together in meaningful patterns or sentences, which can be multiplied endlessly to create discourse. The problem with swearing is that it is more voice than language, more animal than human. Swear words are not chosen for the meaning they convey, but rather for their impact. Swearing is used to punctuate and emphasize discourse in the same way that exclamation marks function. Swearing is a base form of communication that indicates “perception of pleasure and pain.” It is akin to the barking of a dog, the howling of a wolf, or the crowing of a rooster. Swearing isn’t meant to mean anything. It is simply meant to make an impression. The swearing that passes for language in modern social discourse is essentially a counterfeit language that heralds a de-volution of the human subject to a more animal state... “hate speech” functions to create unsafe environments for “outsiders” and cultivates animosity towards them in those who employ this type of speech. Swearing is similar. Using swear words to communicate in sound what cannot be articulated in language can lead to behavior that is fueled by passion rather than reason. One need only consider how often unethical behavior is preceded by “F- it!”, or something similar, which serves to cut-off the psychic disturbances of fear, anxiety or guilt... To bark expletives rather than searching for the most appropriate word to express what one is thinking is an exercise in intellectual laziness that is the first symptom of the fall of man"When one argues one advances points to persuade other people of the truth of one's position. However, when one swears one is short-circuiting the logical pathways to exploit emotional ones. When one has conceded the field of reason to one's opponent, one has thus lost the argument. In short: if you swear/insult your opponent, you have lost the argument

Singapore Seen | Woman's revealing top -- is really over the top - "STOMPer Chen was appalled by how revealing this woman's top was, especially when she bent over to try out a mop during a product demonstration at Jurong Point. According to the STOMPer, the woman had attracted a lot of attention from bystanders... "She was looking at a mop demonstration while others were looking at her 'asset demonstration'!"If STOMP publishes this, I guess it's okay for men to take photos of women in public (even if they're in revealing outfits) without getting charged

Grumpy massage “uncle” in video ad back to sell swimwear - "“Uncle” Toh is at it again. Well, at least his online alter ego is. A sound engineer at a dance club, 53-year-old Toh Kia Hing once again assumes his role as an infamous massage therapist “uncle” who is not happy being hassled by sexy women at work... The video is the third of a series of videos by Jobiness, a startup online platform that offers branding for businesses and a research database for jobseekers."The first video was a ripoff of the Brazilian one (dreamjob.com.br) but they followed up with two others so good for them!

One man’s dream job is another man’s nightmare - "They include having to sniff the armpits of strangers when deodorant companies want to test their products, burning human waste in sea vessels... Ever tasted pet food? Someone does that for a living, too. The Daily Mail reported that Mr Simon Allison, a senior food technologist for Marks & Spencer in the UK, have to taste the canned food before they go on the shop shelves. And unlike the grumpy “uncle” in the video, he enjoys his work. Mr Allison said: “Sniffing the product is a bit like a professional wine taster. It has the taste and aroma of chicken and some of what you call the red flavours - things like heart and liver; gutsy, savoury notes. Then you get a mealy, green pea, pulse aroma and occasionally a sweeter note from the carrot. "You have to chew it a bit. I have trained my palate to look for materials that we will not allow in the recipe, such as tripe - pet owners react badly to the smell of tripe.”"

How facelifts make us look younger by just 3 years - "Overall, the number of years ‘saved’ by having a full facelift or other procedures such as eyelid surgery is around three. The more work that’s done, the younger the look, according to US and Canadian specialists. But they failed to find any significant change in attractiveness ratings afterwards - and in Britain the cost of a clutch of cosmetic surgery procedures could top £10,000."

Interdisciplinarity - "The reality is that everyone likes breadth and interdisciplinarity in theory, but the resistance in practice is considerable""I went to USC as an undergrad and came out 6 years ago thinking that breadth of research was useful, important and necessary for healthy scholarship.
Then I went to grad school…"

Survey: 1 in 5 Singapore workers claim ‘ghostly’ workplace encounters - "Women are more likely than men to 'encounter' or hear about someone encountering 'something'... One respondent quips: “My colleague encountered a ‘ghost’ lurking in the washroom at my shop level. I encountered only the tap that turns on by itself at times, due to a faulty sensor. Ha-ha.” Another puts it bluntly: “Customers and colleagues are scarier than the 'supernatural' because they either make a din or take your stationeries without informing you.”"

Love really is like a drug - "Intense spells of passion are as effective at blocking pain as cocaine and other illicit drugs... Younger's team recruited students in the first nine months of a relationship, when feelings of passion are at their most intense. "We intentionally focused on this early phase of passionate love. We specifically were not looking for longer-lasting, more mature phases of the relationship. We wanted subjects who were feeling euphoric, energetic, obsessively thinking about their beloved, craving their presence," Sean Mackey, a co-author on the paper, said. "When passionate love is described like this, it in some ways sounds like an addiction. We thought, maybe this does involve similar brain systems as those involved in addictions.""

'Romantic Love Is an Addiction,' Researchers Say - "The researchers found that, for heartbroken men and women, looking at photographs of former partners activated regions in the brain associated with rewards, addiction cravings, control of emotions, feelings of attachment and physical pain and distress. The results provide insight into why it might be hard for some people to get over a break up, and why, in some cases, people are driven to commit extreme behaviors, such as stalking and homicide, after losing love"

Crazy in love: What happens in your brain when you really do have chemistry - "The frontal cortex, vital to judgment, shuts down when we fall in love. MRI scans show this de-activation occurs only when someone is shown a photo of the person they adore, causing them to suspend all criticism or doubt... Brain scans have also shown the area of the brain that controls fear, and another region involved in negative emotions, close down, explaining why people feel so happy with the world – and unafraid of what might go wrong – when they fall head over heels... Tests show that taking opioid drugs such as cocaine have a similar effect on dopamine as love.

Review: 'Blue Is the Warmest Color': How Much Sex Is Too Much Sex? - "Kechiche is not the only French director to be accused of criminal badgering. Jean-Claude Brisseau received a one-year suspended prison sentence and fines of nearly 25,000 euros for sexually harassing two actresses while preparing his 2002 film Choses secrètes (Secret Things). His response was to make another movie, Les anges exterminateurs (Exterminating Angels), portraying himself as the victim of his victims... Instead of wondering why there is so much whoopee in Blue Is the Warmest Color — and it’s actually not that much: about nine minutes in the nearly three-hour film — one might ask why there is so little in most other movies. Considering that sex is an activity almost everyone participates in and thinks about even more, it’s startling and depressing to think about how few movies connect their characters’ lives with their erotic drives. The practical answer to this question it that people no longer pay to see sex in movie theaters, as they did in the ’70s for art-house dramas (Last Tango in Paris) and porno chic (Deep Throat); they get it on their home computers for free. But directors can still find much to explore, and Kechiche is one of them. Unlike the slick, deodorized sexcapades in late-night Cinemax movies, the graphic scenes in Blue express the personalities of Emma, who’s in charge, and Adèle, who’s truly, madly, deeply in love. Amour fou was rarely so fou, so fevered, so lovable."

Pot growers celebrate as Uruguay legalizes cultivation and consumption of marijuana - "What the government of President José “Pepe” Mujica is advocating — which will surely become law because of his movement’s comfortable majority in the Senate — will make this country of just 3.4 million people a trailblazer. Under Mujica, a 78-year-old former guerrilla, Uruguay has adopted a raft of liberal policies on issues from same-sex marriage to abortion."

Changing British attitudes: press and politicians out, royal family in - "The UK is still a long way off its 1980s levels of royal support, when 65% said it was "very important" for Britain to continue to have a monarchy. But there has been a fascinating turn-around in opinion – from 27% thinking this in 2006 to 45% expressing strong support for the royal family in this year's latest survey."

Why I Don’t Swear: An Argument for Decent Language - "Aristotle made a distinction between voice and language. A voice is merely sound indicating pleasure or pain, but language has political and ethical dimensions. Language is a means by which human beings make distinctions between good and evil, just and unjust. “Language”, as my professor Dr. Robert E. Wood likes to say, “is reason laying down its tracks in a system of signs.” Reason cannot fully articulate itself in the sound of a voice. It needs the more refined mode of signs, in the form of letters that form words which can be strung together in meaningful patterns or sentences, which can be multiplied endlessly to create discourse. The problem with swearing is that it is more voice than language, more animal than human. Swear words are not chosen for the meaning they convey, but rather for their impact. Swearing is used to punctuate and emphasize discourse in the same way that exclamation marks function. Swearing is a base form of communication that indicates “perception of pleasure and pain.” It is akin to the barking of a dog, the howling of a wolf, or the crowing of a rooster. Swearing isn’t meant to mean anything. It is simply meant to make an impression. The swearing that passes for language in modern social discourse is essentially a counterfeit language that heralds a de-volution of the human subject to a more animal state... “hate speech” functions to create unsafe environments for “outsiders” and cultivates animosity towards them in those who employ this type of speech. Swearing is similar. Using swear words to communicate in sound what cannot be articulated in language can lead to behavior that is fueled by passion rather than reason. One need only consider how often unethical behavior is preceded by “F- it!”, or something similar, which serves to cut-off the psychic disturbances of fear, anxiety or guilt... To bark expletives rather than searching for the most appropriate word to express what one is thinking is an exercise in intellectual laziness that is the first symptom of the fall of man"When one argues one advances points to persuade other people of the truth of one's position. However, when one swears one is short-circuiting the logical pathways to exploit emotional ones. When one has conceded the field of reason to one's opponent, one has thus lost the argument. In short: if you swear/insult your opponent, you have lost the argument

Singapore Seen | Woman's revealing top -- is really over the top - "STOMPer Chen was appalled by how revealing this woman's top was, especially when she bent over to try out a mop during a product demonstration at Jurong Point. According to the STOMPer, the woman had attracted a lot of attention from bystanders... "She was looking at a mop demonstration while others were looking at her 'asset demonstration'!"If STOMP publishes this, I guess it's okay for men to take photos of women in public (even if they're in revealing outfits) without getting charged

Grumpy massage “uncle” in video ad back to sell swimwear - "“Uncle” Toh is at it again. Well, at least his online alter ego is. A sound engineer at a dance club, 53-year-old Toh Kia Hing once again assumes his role as an infamous massage therapist “uncle” who is not happy being hassled by sexy women at work... The video is the third of a series of videos by Jobiness, a startup online platform that offers branding for businesses and a research database for jobseekers."The first video was a ripoff of the Brazilian one (dreamjob.com.br) but they followed up with two others so good for them!

One man’s dream job is another man’s nightmare - "They include having to sniff the armpits of strangers when deodorant companies want to test their products, burning human waste in sea vessels... Ever tasted pet food? Someone does that for a living, too. The Daily Mail reported that Mr Simon Allison, a senior food technologist for Marks & Spencer in the UK, have to taste the canned food before they go on the shop shelves. And unlike the grumpy “uncle” in the video, he enjoys his work. Mr Allison said: “Sniffing the product is a bit like a professional wine taster. It has the taste and aroma of chicken and some of what you call the red flavours - things like heart and liver; gutsy, savoury notes. Then you get a mealy, green pea, pulse aroma and occasionally a sweeter note from the carrot. "You have to chew it a bit. I have trained my palate to look for materials that we will not allow in the recipe, such as tripe - pet owners react badly to the smell of tripe.”"

How facelifts make us look younger by just 3 years - "Overall, the number of years ‘saved’ by having a full facelift or other procedures such as eyelid surgery is around three. The more work that’s done, the younger the look, according to US and Canadian specialists. But they failed to find any significant change in attractiveness ratings afterwards - and in Britain the cost of a clutch of cosmetic surgery procedures could top £10,000."

Interdisciplinarity - "The reality is that everyone likes breadth and interdisciplinarity in theory, but the resistance in practice is considerable""I went to USC as an undergrad and came out 6 years ago thinking that breadth of research was useful, important and necessary for healthy scholarship.
Then I went to grad school…"

Survey: 1 in 5 Singapore workers claim ‘ghostly’ workplace encounters - "Women are more likely than men to 'encounter' or hear about someone encountering 'something'... One respondent quips: “My colleague encountered a ‘ghost’ lurking in the washroom at my shop level. I encountered only the tap that turns on by itself at times, due to a faulty sensor. Ha-ha.” Another puts it bluntly: “Customers and colleagues are scarier than the 'supernatural' because they either make a din or take your stationeries without informing you.”"

Love really is like a drug - "Intense spells of passion are as effective at blocking pain as cocaine and other illicit drugs... Younger's team recruited students in the first nine months of a relationship, when feelings of passion are at their most intense. "We intentionally focused on this early phase of passionate love. We specifically were not looking for longer-lasting, more mature phases of the relationship. We wanted subjects who were feeling euphoric, energetic, obsessively thinking about their beloved, craving their presence," Sean Mackey, a co-author on the paper, said. "When passionate love is described like this, it in some ways sounds like an addiction. We thought, maybe this does involve similar brain systems as those involved in addictions.""

'Romantic Love Is an Addiction,' Researchers Say - "The researchers found that, for heartbroken men and women, looking at photographs of former partners activated regions in the brain associated with rewards, addiction cravings, control of emotions, feelings of attachment and physical pain and distress. The results provide insight into why it might be hard for some people to get over a break up, and why, in some cases, people are driven to commit extreme behaviors, such as stalking and homicide, after losing love"

Crazy in love: What happens in your brain when you really do have chemistry - "The frontal cortex, vital to judgment, shuts down when we fall in love. MRI scans show this de-activation occurs only when someone is shown a photo of the person they adore, causing them to suspend all criticism or doubt... Brain scans have also shown the area of the brain that controls fear, and another region involved in negative emotions, close down, explaining why people feel so happy with the world – and unafraid of what might go wrong – when they fall head over heels... Tests show that taking opioid drugs such as cocaine have a similar effect on dopamine as love.